


Malleus Maleficarum

by CornishIvy



Series: On The Finding Of Witches [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Animal Abuse/Death, Drama, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Fairy Tale Elements, Historical Inaccuracy, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Magic, Minor Character Death, Slow Burn, Witch AU, Witchcraft, ish, kind of?, mentions of illness and poisonings, not a ton of research going into this one, the one where i kill off characters again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2020-05-19 04:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19349218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CornishIvy/pseuds/CornishIvy
Summary: A curious witch meets a lonely sorcerer.





	1. Darksome Night and Shining Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to On the Finding of Witches, but you don't need to have read that one. This is going to be a bit darker and in a slightly different style. Y'all can blame this entirely on Wistman's Wood in Devon, upon which the Covenwood and the surrounding forest is loosely based. Once again, I don't have a solid plan. This is my first time managing two stories at once, but I got excited, so here we go!

Crawly was in trouble. Again.

Unwilling to even look at him, Beelzebub had driven him from the Covenwood until such a time as he got it into his head just whose side he was on.

He didn’t let himself worry. She was always throwing him out and letting him back in. He just had to bring her a gift, and she’d roll her eyes and set him to minding the cauldrons or something.

And so he crept along the forest floor, over rough granite smothered with lichen, along gnarled roots that writhed just as much as the adders that scattered from his path. One was a little too slow for his liking, so he snapped eloquently at it and laughed as it fled in terror.

It was dark beneath the twisting trees, but Crawly could see the way before him, every leaf, root, and rock. He had to find something nice. A basket of mosses and rowan bark wasn’t going to cut it this time. He slithered along the secret paths, over boulders no human could have climbed. Farther and farther he wandered from the Covenwood, tasting the air, searching. 

The light of day began to bleed from the sky again, and Crawly at last started to worry. There was _nothing._ He had been travelling for three days, and still had nothing to offer his coven. An old fear began to settle into his bones, tingling where his arms would have been. _What if?_ he wondered, _what if this time, they don’t let me come back?_

He hissed agitatedly, frightening an owl from its roost. Smothering his distress, he cast his gaze this way and that, swaying as he reared.

A flick of his tongue, and he had a scent.

With renewed purpose, he set out.

 

Soon enough, the rocky terrain smoothed into rolling moors and fields of heather. This was exceedingly unusual. Crawly knew that the forest was meant to go on for some distance yet, before giving way to villages and towns. He was similarly perturbed by the looming shape of a fortress in the gloom, gleaming palely by moonlight, every window twinkling with light. He skirted the perimeter, chary of meeting any of the strange castle’s inhabitants. 

The full moon had reached its peak by the time Crawly found what he’d been searching for. Apple trees, heavy with fruit, grew in neat rows, far enough from the castle walls that Crawly felt safe approaching. Until a soft sound stopped him cold.

The orchard was remote, but not empty.

Crawly coiled in the shadow of a windswept bush, eyeing the lone figure that stood among the apple trees. He would have been just a hair shorter than Crawly, and a tad rounder. In the failing light, the man’s white tunic glowed with an ethereal light. His hair, too, shone like spun silver, though he couldn’t have been much older than Crawly.

Crawly had the sudden impulse to touch those gleaming locks, but he beat the thought down.

At the stranger’s hip sat a scabbard that (though Crawly knew this was highly unlikely) appeared to be carved marble. A shining hilt glinted above it.

Crawly was very close to becoming cross. First the weird moor and manor sprouting in the middle of the forest, and now an armed man guarding the trees. Obviously, these fruits were important. Crawly wanted them even more for it.

He decided to take the chance, and slid forward, inch by inch, silent as the night. He kept to the shadows, letting his dark shape meld with the darkness, blurring at the edges. It wasn’t enough. Just as he’d reached the nearest tree, the figure in white whirled towards him, drawing the sword.

“Who’s there?” the stranger demanded. Or, rather, he tried to demand. His voice was too high, too wavering. He may as well have said, “I don’t want to be here, please, whatever you do, do not respond to me and kindly go away.”

Crawly halted and considered. Then he stood.

To the man with the sword, Crawly appeared as a dark, vaguely human shape that rose up from the earth like an overeager reed. He was wrapped in a black cloak he’d fashioned from the night wind, a shawl of moon-shadow tossed over his fiery hair.

“Oh, goodness,” the swordsman said. He lowered his weapon distractedly and took a step back. He did not, as Crawly had been hoping, run away. In fact, now that he was closer and the man was looking right at him, Crawly could feel the faint heat of power that wafted from him like woodsmoke.      

A sorcerer.

Shit.

Crawly had no idea where to go from there. He couldn’t run away; his pride would never allow it. He was certain he would fare the worse in a fight, being unarmed and just an apprentice poisoner. That left only one option as far as he could see.

“Hullo,” he said, clasping his hands in what he hoped was an unthreatening gesture.

“I’m, uh, a traveler, from, erm, a rather far way away, and I was wondering if you could possibly spare one of your numerous and bountiful apples?”

“Are you the one who’s been sneaking in here every month?” the stranger asked.

Crawly was nonplussed, “What? No. I just got here. Traveler, I said. Hungry and downtrodden and all that. Apple? Yes?”

“No!” the swordsman said, sheathing his weapon, “Now move along. If anyone else catches you here, we’ll both be in for it.”

“Oh, come ooooon,” Crawly wheedled, “I’m starving and everything! Just one apple!”

The stranger frowned and glanced nervously at the castle.

“You’re starving?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” Crawly assured, “Very much. Haven’t eaten in days. Three of them, actually.”

This was technically true, but as a snake, Crawly could go weeks without eating and not feel peckish in the slightest. Not that the orchard guard needed to know that.

The man wavered and Crawly pressed his chance, “Just one apple? No one ever needs to know.”

“But they _will_ know,” the stranger said, wringing his hands, “They always do.”

“Who will know?” Crawly asked.

The stranger shook his head, distressed, “It doesn’t matter. Just. Take the apple and go. Quickly.”

Now it was Crawly’s turn to waver. The reason he kept getting into trouble with his covenmates was that, at his heart, Crawly was a good person. He didn’t want to see anyone hurt (unless they really deserved it) and that tended to cause problems when one has been partially raised by poisoners.

This man was afraid. Whatever was going to happen if he lost any apples, it wasn’t going to be slap on the wrist.

Any of Crawly’s brothers or sisters would have taken the apple and left. In total honesty, they would have either killed the guard or slipped right by him and lifted as many apples as they wanted. Crawly, to their eternal shame and often to his own consternation, was not like them.  

He waved the man closer and drew him into the shade of one of the larger trees, eyes on the castle windows. The stranger came along, docile as a lamb, but tight with apprehension.

“What’s your name?” Crawly asked.

“Azariah,” the guard answered. He wouldn’t meet Crawly’s eye, “Azariah Fell.”

“I’m Crawly.”

“Seriously?” Azariah asked, then blanched, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, well. Rather a strange name.”

But Crawly was laughing, and soon Azariah was chuckling faintly as well. He finally looked up to meet Crawly’s gaze and gasped.

“Oh!” he said, jerking back, “Your eyes!”

Crawly had forgotten them. He quickly stepped away, raising his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Azariah said again, “I didn’t mean… They’re lovely eyes! It’s just that. I thought you were. You know. Mortal.”

“You mean,” Crawly said, drawing close once more, “You aren’t?”

“Well,” Azariah looked to the castle again and shivered, “Not exactly.”

“What happens to you if I take the apple?” Crawly asked. Without really meaning to, he placed a hand on Azariah’s shoulder.

“Well, seeing as you’re _not_ mortal,” Azariah said, “Probably nothing. They likely won’t find out. Had you been anyone else, I would have been serious trouble. But, as you’re you. I think it’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, no,” Azariah admitted, “But you need them more than I do, I’m sure.”

Torn, Crawly watched as Azariah reached up and gathered four apples. Then the guard glanced shiftily about and slid over to a different tree, plucking a single apple and bringing it back. The first four he allowed Crawly to gather in his shawl.

“These are for your family,” he said. Then, he lifted the last apple and said, “This one is for you. Outsiders can only find the castle during a full moon. But if you eat this, you’ll be able to find us no matter the time. If you,” he glanced down, then back up, “wanted to visit again?”

Crawly took it carefully.

“I don’t remember telling you that these were for my family.”

Azariah shrugged, “But they are.”

“Yes.”

Crawly held Azariah’s gaze as he brought the apple to his mouth and took a deliberate bite. It was cold and sweet, like rain in the sun. Like quiet moments in the garden. Crawly couldn’t decide what it was like.

Azariah beamed.

Gathering the shawl close, Crawly turned back to the dark moors. He paused before being swallowed by the shadows and looked back to see the pale shape of Azariah watching his retreat. He raised a hand and called, “Until next time, then.”

He couldn’t know if he’d been heard, but hoped that the promise reached him anyway.

 


	2. The Stones are Great

The air was wet and wan in the cold morning when Crawly came again upon the castle.

A fog wafted over the moors and turned every bush and rock into a looming shadow. Crawly didn’t know who or how many else lived in the castle with Azariah, but he was certain he would rather not be found by them. Every sound made him flinch.

He crept in the misty shroud, listening, tongue flickering, and caught a strange scent. A woman’s voice was dancing across wide fields of gorse and heather, and he shied away from it. He didn’t know the language, but something about the falling cadence chilled him. The smell of her was sharp and burning. If he’d had hair, it would have no doubt been standing on end. He slithered from it until the song was lost to the smothering grey.  

Crawly was discouraged. Azariah could be anywhere on the grounds, anywhere inside. Perhaps he’d even gone away. They hadn’t arranged a time or place for meeting.

Perhaps, Crawly worried, the loss of the apples had not gone unnoticed after all.

A dark shape rose before him, a standing form in the gloom, and Crawly balked before realizing that it held no heat and made no move. Just a stone.

One of many, he realized as he drew closer. A circle of stones, taller than Crawly’s man-shape, arranged in a wide radius around an overgrown statue. And before the statue stood a man. Crawly could have shouted with relief. In a world of shadows, Azariah shone with a gentle light.  

Before Crawly could call out to him, Azariah had turned, searching the air just above where Crawly lay. “Hello?” he asked softly, “Who’s there?”

Crawly stood and shook out his hair and robes before striding into the circle.

Azariah beamed, “It’s you!” he said, “I was starting to think I’d dreamed you up.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” Crawly drawled, leaning against a standing stone, “A few weeks, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I suppose,” Azariah said amenably, “The days pass so strangely out there,” he gestured into the fog, “I wouldn’t know a thing about it.”

 “Who’s this, then?” Crawly asked, nodding at the statue. It stood on a crumbling plinth, blanketed in ivy and moss. The figure may have been a woman beneath the green, of a height with the surrounding stones, hands open in something that was not quite welcome.   

“It’s the Veiled Mother,” Azariah said, “The first statue of her, I think. This shrine is rather old now, so nobody uses it. There’s a temple at the Areopagus with a grander likeness. No one comes here anymore.”

“No one but you?”

Azariah glanced guiltily away, “I suppose. It just doesn’t seem right to leave her all alone. It’s silly, I know.”

Crawly actually found it exceedingly sweet, but thought better of saying so. Instead, he asked, “Is that why you’re out here? Clearing away the vines and all?”

“Oh, no!” Azariah said, shocked, “I would never presume!”

“How’s that?” Crawly asked, taken aback by his companion’s vehemence.

“She’s the _Veiled_ Mother. No one is ever supposed to see her face.”

Crawly had certainly heard of odder spirits, so he shrugged and said, “Alright. But whoever made the statue must have seen it? They were carving it, after all.”

“I like to think she made it. It’s certainly been here longer than anything else, even the, erm. Even us.”

“By ‘us’,” Crawly asked, “You mean the others from the castle?”

“Oh, um,” Azariah was staring at the ground beneath his boots, “Yes. But I really shouldn’t be talking about them. It’s all supposed to be very,” he waved a hand, “mysterious.”

“That’s alright,” Crawly said, already planning how best to worm the story out of him while causing the least amount of distress, “But I must ask. Did you get into any trouble for the apple thing?”

Azariah smiled, “No, no, not at all. They haven’t mentioned it since. Just asked if anything had been stolen and I said no, because nothing had. And that was that.”

“Clever of you,” Crawly said.

Azariah stared in blank surprise at him. “Clever?” he repeated, “Me? Oh. To think. Well, it worked, in any event. And you? How did your family like their gifts?”

Crawly shrugged stiffly, “They were delighted. Bee- er. My oldest sister, in particular. Took her days to slice it all up just right. She still has the seeds. Some of them went searching for this place to find more, but I neglected to mention the bit about the full moon.”

“They wouldn’t find it anyway,” Azariah said, “Not by looking for it. That’s why the whole thief business is such a bother.”

“Thief?”

“Oh, goodness,” Azariah said crossly, “I really shouldn’t say.”

“Come on, now,” Crawly said, sidling a little closer, “I’m sure you’ve mentioned it before. No harm in explaining. Maybe I could help?”

“Well,” Azariah hedged, “I suppose it really wouldn’t hurt anything, you knowing.” He frowned into the fog awhile before continuing, “Alright. For the past two months, when the gates are open, someone has been stealing into the orchard and making off with an apple. Just the one, but it’s been from a different tree each time. Some of those fruits are fine, of course, but some. Well. Not for eating, you see. It’s certainly a mortal, because they leave a kind of trail behind, but I don’t know more than that. Although,” he lowered his voice meaningfully, “The last full moon, when I was set to guard the trees, no mortals appeared. Just you. I do wonder if perhaps you frightened them off.”

“Me?” Crawly mused, “I didn’t see anyone. Or smell them. Not that I was paying attention. No, it was probably you that scared them, all resplendent with your sword and your cloak. Quite the intimidating figure.”

“Really,” Azariah said primly, “There’s no need to make fun.”

Crawly grinned and said, “Next time, we’ll have to stay hidden. Quiet. Our little visitor will come crawling, unawares, and then,” he snapped his fingers demonstratively, “We get him.”

“We?” Azariah asked, “Oh! Oh, thank you. It will be nice, someone else being there, I think. What do you think will happen if we really do find the culprit?”

“What’s that?” Crawly asked, “They sent you out there with a sword and all, but didn’t tell you what you ought to do if you found the poor bugger?”

Azariah swallowed queasily, “You don’t think I should. You know. _Hurt_ them, do you?”

“Well,” Crawly said airily, “Let me worry about that, then. A month or so ‘til, plenty of time to come up with something.”

“A month?” Azariah asked, “The next full moon is only days away.”

“Right, well, that’s May Eve, isn’t it?” said Crawly, “I’ll be otherwise occupied, and no mortal would be out traveling then, not unless they’re really desperate.”

“Ah, yes,” said Azariah, the erstwhile merry glint vanishing from his eye, “Yes. I had quite forgotten.”

As if summoned by the plummeting mood, a voice lilted through the mist, calling.

“What’s that?” Crawly murmured, drawing closer to his companion, “Is that a name?”

It came again, the voice that had been singing, slinking over the moors. Azariah seized Crawly’s sleeve and began tugging him away, out of the circle.

“ _Go, go!_ ” he hissed, such to make Crawly proud, “She mustn’t see you!”

“Who is that?” Crawly demanded, “Who is she calling?”

_“Aziraphale,”_ the voice came a third time.

Azariah made a low, wounded sound, and jerked away from Crawly like a puppet yanked by its strings. He fled to the edge of the circle and paused, clutching at the stone, to say, “Oh, please go! I’ll be back here on May Day, but you must go now!”

And then he vanished into the fog.

Crawly slithered after, tried to follow, keeping low and quiet. But the landscape rolled on, grey and dim, unchanging, unbroken. No voice guided him, not a thing moved. He found himself at the forest’s edge, unsure how he had come there, and finally had to admit defeat. Back into the dark woods he crawled, feeling as though he had pried into something forbidden and come out the worse for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still alive!  
> Man, it's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry for the wait, guys, it's been kind of a weird summer. But now we're back into autumn, maybe things will calm down a bit. :D  
> The tags have changed now that I've got something of an outline going, so please check them again because things are going to get a little heavy after this. 
> 
> This chapter's title comes from Layamon's Brut, a historical poem about Britain by a 13th century priest. It's a really fascinating text. Def recommend if you're a fan of Arthurian romance/mythology.


	3. Both Tongue and Face Were Strange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning!  
> The very last paragraph has (snake) Crawly eating an animal alive, please don't read that bit if it would be upsetting!

The sun was setting and Crawly was running out of time.

May Eve had come too quickly. Distracted as he was by the puzzle of Azariah and the strange castle on the moors, he had neglected his chore until the absolute final moment. But it was fine, he told himself, nothing at all to worry over. He just needed to steal some fire. That’s it. Easy. He’d done it plenty of times before.

But this time he couldn’t help but wonder, _what would Azariah think?_ If Azariah, who gave away the treasures he guarded all for a smile and a sad story, knew what Crawly was up to. What it meant. Where it could lead.

Crawly had never been exactly comfortable with the proceedings, but it was the done thing. Steal the fire, bring it back to the Covenwood before midnight. It had never been so hard before.

All he needed to do was get back into the right mindset. Think like Beelzebub. Think like Ligur. Think like— well, maybe not like Hastur _. Think like a poisoner._

Once again he crept by night over the earth, scenting and searching. The paths of the Covenwood led him through grasping thickets and briars, over rough stone and fallen branches, and finally onto the packed dirt of a road. This he followed, tasting woodsmoke and feeling the warmth of clustered hearths.

He picked a remote cottage, connected to the main village only by a faint track. Suitably removed, definitely inhabited. He only had to get inside.

Resolved, Crawly slipped easily into a new shape.

 

Velvet night was falling. The very air was a haze made thick by the strident calls of the night birds and crickets. Within the house, by the light of the fireplace, shadows grew darker. They stretched and groped from their corners, filling the small room. Agnes sat by the fire, blithe as could be, but Virtue paced uneasily, and would not be reassured by her husband. Between steps, she glanced at the door.

“Something is wrong,” she said, “There’s something wrong about tonight.”

John turned to Agnes. The old matriarch remained calm and didn’t even look up from her mending, “Be still, daughter,” she said, “Come and sit by the fire.”

Virtue regarded the hearth, looking ill, and shook her head.

“My love,” John soothed, “If your mother says all is well, then surely…?”

“She did not say that,” Virtue persisted.

“Virtue,” Agnes said breezily, “Why don’t you greet our visitor?”

All three of the cottage’s occupants turned to stare at the door. They had watched it for a good minute before a sharp knock sounded against the wood.

Virtue crossed to the door, opened it, and stood solidly before it so that the mysterious guest was hidden from those inside. They held a quietly murmured conversation, and Virtue was just about to close the door when Agnes said, “Let her in, dear. Don’t be rude.”

Chastened, Virtue stood aside and allowed the woman to enter.

Their visitor was certainly strange. She wore a long gown, dark as the night. Her hair was allowed to cascade in red curtains down her back, unbound and unplaited. The most singular thing about her, however, was the blindfold that hid the upper half of her pale, almost sallow, face.

“Well met,” she said huskily and in a strange, clipped accent, “I’ll not trouble you long. I only wondered if I might sit by your fire a while. The night is cold.” She drew a shawl, black as sable, about her thin shoulders to illustrate her point.

John answered, “Of course you may. Here,” he gently took her arm and guided her to the hearthside to sit beside Agnes. She moved with cold assurance, as if she had been to the cottage a thousand times before and knew every step of it. Or, perhaps, as if she could see her way despite the blindfold. Virtue watched her with sharp suspicion; Agnes, with a detached interest.  

“And what is your name, child?” John asked. He wondered that his wife would turn away a blind woman, only just more than a girl, but said nothing about it. He had learned to wait these things out and see what came of it.

The visitor hesitated only a second before saying, “Ashtoreth.”  

“A strange name,” Virtue said.

Ashtoreth gave a gleaming grin, “Not where I come from.”

“And where is that?” the old matriarch asked. John turned sharply towards her. From his mother-in-law’s tone, he divined that she already knew the answer.

“From here and there,” their visitor replied, “You would not know my home by its name.”

“Would you care for some milk?” Virtue asked quickly, hoping to stop Ashtoreth’s mouth with a drink if nothing else.

The young woman smiled faintly and accepted the cup that was pushed into her hands. An uncertain silence fell over the house. Ashtoreth had turned to face the fire, as though she were watching the flames dance against the tinder. The light cast harsh lines against what could be seen of her. The black of her clothes blurred the edges of her form against the darkness. In that moment, she seemed to John to be a fey thing, only half there. A log popped in the hearth and dimmed suddenly, wood falling slack, and the spell was broken.

Agnes stirred at the hearth with the poker, kicking up a cloud of embers. Ashtoreth sighed strangely, a deep, searching breath.

“You’re very kind,” she said after a pause, strangely hoarse, “There must be some way I can repay?”

Agnes said, “No. The warmth and the milk are gifts freely given.”

Ashtoreth’s shoulders twitched, her mouth twisted in a defeated line. “Surely,” she said, “I couldn’t possibly leave without offering you something in return.”

“But you must,” Agnes said, “Isn’t that the way of it?”

Ashtoreth jerked in her seat and swiveled to face Agnes. John and Virtue half-rose, watching.

“Yes,” she said at last, drawing the word out, nearly hissing. Her voice had changed, her accent rounding, “Yes. Well. Ta, then”

She stood and strode easily toward the door. John hastened to follow, protesting, “The night is still cold! You would be more than welcome to stay with us.”

Virtue made an aborted sound of dissent, but Ashtoreth was already waving him away, “Like you said,” she addressed Agnes, “This is the way of it.”

And she was gone.

“What was that?” Virtue demanded of her mother, “What was she? I could feel it, you know, trailing death and smoke. Why did you let her in?”

Agnes stirred the fire again and smiled benignly.

Outside, Ashtoreth made for the cover of the woods, frowning, uncertain. The stolen embers burned in her chest, feeding on her breath. Once she had reached the thicket and the trees, she shook away her shape and fell onto the earth in a slithering coil. The fire still danced inside him.

Crawly didn’t know how the old woman had known why he was there, how these things needed to be done. Her knowledge only made the guilt heavier, the alien sense that though she had allowed it, he had wronged his hostess horribly. Worse yet, he had nearly lost his nerve, nearly undone everything by offering to pay for the fire and milk. And then where would he have been?

By the night-paths of the forest, he found the edge of the Covenwood. In a fit of pique, he snapped at a quivering adder and hit the mark. The creature writhed in the throes of a boiling venom beneath his jaws and down his throat. Only the burning heat within his ribs could still it. The meal simultaneously satisfied and harrowed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title (and most of the content) of this chapter comes from William Butler Yeat's play, The Land of Heart's Desire. It's about a family and a visiting priest on the night of May Eve when one of the fair folk come knocking. In particular, this chapter was inspired by the line: "The good people go asking milk and fire upon May Eve - Woe on the house that gives, for they have power upon it for a year."
> 
> Please let me know how you like it!


	4. All The Brood of Hell Abroad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning!  
> This chapter contains animal sacrifice/haruspicy, though it's very quick. Skip over the lines between "She still carried the faintly twitching hare," and "Beelzebub regarded the mess dispassionately" to avoid it.

Fires burned in the Covenwood. Reams of smoke hung in swathes from tree to tree, tangled in twisting boughs, devouring light. The dark forms of people and beasts writhed among the spitting flames, through clouds of miasmic steam. Every witch of the Coven pressed into the seething crowd, filling the trees and trampling their roots.

Crawly joined the throng just after the celebrations began, the last to arrive. While his fellows had adorned themselves in wreaths and garlands of twisting briar and wildflowers, Crawly had only time enough to snatch at a few greens and hastily twist them into less of a crown and more of a ribbon that he haphazardly braided into his hair.

The Hounds were stationed along the perimeter of the meeting ground, straining their ropes, snapping and baying at any who dared too close. A horned youth was flung into the reach of a few tied by the fast-rushing stream, to the raucous approval of onlookers, but fell backwards into the water in the shape of a bleating goat before jaws could close on flesh. Crawly used the distraction to slip past the yellow teeth and into the chaos of the mass.

The snarls, hisses, and shrieks of the gathered rang with the manic pounding of drums, loud enough to rattle the fire in Crawly’s ribcage, whatever shape he took. Like his covenmates, he was whirl of many, an undulating creature dancing wildly with the rest, adding his voice to the wailing chorus. Beneath and above it all was the rattling drone of Beelzebub from her place in the center of the wide circle. She stood by the Baelfire, a cloud of flies buzzing about the offering table over which she presided.

Crawly was careful to avoid her notice in the wild crush of dancers. He was similarly eager to avoid any of his elders, keeping far from the flames for as long as he could. Hastur was watching. He could feel the clammy gaze on his shoulders, and strove to keep his movement loose and easy, not to tense beneath scrutiny.

The throng pressed and writhed, right up to the lesser coals in their pits, and particularly the Baelfire. Under Beelzebub’s gaze, Dagon vomited a torrent of boiling water onto the tinder in a screaming cloud of steam. Hastur whirled past, clutching a burning brand in bare hands to toss onto the fire. When Ligur added his smoldering sedge to the pile, the flames leapt, and the surrounding dancers cheered.

Crawly couldn’t go unnoticed forever, and as the night wore on, despite his best efforts, Crawly was carried by the crush to stand before Beelzebub. All eyes on him, all out of time. He breathed deeply and allowed his offering to pour from his mouth in a blazing torrent, leaving a cold pit by his heart. The Baelfire erupted into an incandescent inferno, bellowing and white. The gathered revelers gasped and recoiled. The dance stopped, the drums quieted. Even the Hounds watched in silence, eyes gleaming.

Beelzebub watched Crawly with a flat stare, eyebrow arched. He stood in her gaze, feeling very small, while his covenmates muttered. She stepped slowly about the bonfire, cocking her head and stroking the flames as though testing the quality of silk. She turned back to Crawly, still unperturbed, and said, “This would seem to bear inve _zzz_ tigating, wouldn’t it?”

“ _Ngk_ ,” Crawly said.

Beelzebub stalked to the offering table and selected a plump hare, its eyes rolling glassily. Prize in hand, she raised her voice and called over the revelers, “What are you all looking at? Our gathering has ended! Away and about! Release the Hounds!”

The drums were taken up with renewed enthusiasm as the crowd erupted into howling cheers. The horde surged outward, dispersing in a cacophonous riot of wings, claws, and hooves.

Over the din came Beelzebub’s drone, “To me, Crawly!”

Crawly dared not disobey, not with the Hounds baying so close by.

With a wave of his covenmates, he took to the forest, hissing and snapping to avoid a careless trampling while Beelzebub swarmed above the rest in a buzzing cloud. They followed the path of the stream as it wended and widened, swift and icy cold. The surrounding tumult thinned and died as the mob dispersed, each going their own way to wreak havoc in the time left before dawn. Beelzebub, however, was rarely without some kind of retinue. Crawly heard claws in the moss behind, and two shapes kept them apace in the murk of the stream, even after the others had vanished into the night.   

They came to a mound of stone that might have once been a cairn, but had long been emptied and hollowed by the rushing water that spiraled into a pool beneath. Crawly followed Beelzebub through a narrow opening and into the yawning darkness.

The space was wide enough for Crawly to stand, and for Dagon to some creeping out of the water. She rose like a spectre, rivulets running from long hair and bared teeth. Hastur surfaced next, and crouched gracelessly on the slimy ground. Then came Ligur from the craggy opening, eyes like coals, sparing not a glance for his companions, but looking instead at the dark above them.

Within the grotto, growing from the far wall of rock, was a grotesque formation. Fed by the dripping stalactites above, it had swollen over the years into a looming, horned thing, wrapped in shadow like a bat in its wings. Beelzebub stopped just beneath it and brushed soot from her shoulders.

She still carried the faintly twitching hare.

“Alright then,” she said, sounding bored, and flicked a jaggedly worn knife from her tattered sleeve. With it, she swiped at the hare’s belly and spilled its innards across the stone, spraying blood.

Crawly very carefully did not flinch.

Beelzebub regarded the mess dispassionately for a moment, turning her head this was and that. Her eyebrows rose as she read, and at last she turned a calculating gaze on Crawly.

“Very good,” she said, almost grudgingly, “Very well done.”

The hare was shuddering in her grip. She tossed the dying animal into the pool and said, “I’ll need some time to decide what to do. When I call, you will come.”

Taking that as a dismissal, Crawly gave a jerky bow and began backing towards the dim starlight.

“Right, right, right. You just let me know when… yup. ‘Till then, got to, you know. I’ll just. Be going.”

“Well done,” Hastur echoed sourly as he passed.

“You know me,” Crawly answered, “Keen.”

With that, he wriggled out of the cave and fled into the open night. He feared at first that he might be followed, that Hastur or Ligur might demand an explanation. He took the most tortuous paths through rock and thicket, circling around and doubling back when the cold place in his chest lurched particularly guiltily.

Crawly was a whirl of confused thought and feeling. Beelzebub was pleased? What had the augury told her? The fire had been sort of a gift, not properly stolen, and yet the Baelfire had reacted to it. And reacted well, apparently. It was a _good_ thing, or seemed to be. Why did he feel as though he were betraying his covenmates? Or, better yet, betraying the strange family from whom he’d taken the fire? Or even _Azariah_ , who’d had nothing at all to do with any of it.

His mind caught on the singular thought, and he felt with utmost certainty that he must see Azariah. Whether to confess, to distract himself, or just to see if the young sorcerer was alright after their last unsettling meeting.

May Day, he’d said.

With the stark light of the full moon to guide him, Crawly made once again for the twisting moors.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The night before May Day is generally known as Walpurgisnacht, or the Feast of Saint Walpurga. It was a sort of second Halloween, when spirits and witches would be out and about. Devils and ghostly black dogs haunted the woods and moors that night, and travel was discouraged. The Fantasia segment "A Night on Bald Mountain" depicts such a night, immediately followed the Crowning of the May Queen (Mary) the next morning on May 1st.
> 
> This chapter's title is from a translation of a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called "Die erste Walpurgisnacht." It's about ancients druids sneaking into the forest to perform their sacred rites, even though they risk being murdered by the conquering Christians if they are discovered.
> 
> I also love the idea of Beelzebub dissolving into a swarm of flies Dracula Untold style. Much more impressive than turning into a single fly. Like. What are you gonna do? Buzz at me?


	5. All The Air Is Honey-Sweet

The sun bloomed white over the shivering moors, stirred by the chill Spring wind. Crawly slunk beneath it, weaving among the grasses, eager to avoid notice. He tried, as he went, to map the strange place in his mind, to track and pin the hillocks and heather and to fix the castle in its foundation. He considered the paths of the Covenwood and how they led him there. The first time he’d chanced across the castle, what Azariah called the Areopagus, he had been traveling for three days. Then it became only a matter of hours to find it. Perhaps the apple Azariah had given him had something to do with it. If so, he thought crossly after realizing again that he’d gone in a circle, the fruit was no help at all with navigating within the borders themselves. 

There was no fog to hide him this time, but the rolling fields were empty and bare, and no voices sang in the still morning silence. Not even birds, Crawly could not help but notice. Even in the darker reaches of the Covenwood, something was always chittering or hissing. The place was a cacophony at its quietest, but this strange, windswept plain was utterly silent. Not even the grass stirring in the breeze rustled quite right.

It was, altogether, completely unnerving in a way that Crawly was only noticing right then. A promise was wrapped somewhere in the silence, tight as a bowstring.

Crawly was jarred from his anxious musings by voices, sharp and shattering, one saying, “You understand, of course, that this cannot be allowed to continue,” and another saying, “I’m sure that you can handle this. You’ve never let us down before.”

The first voice was soft and light, girlish and yet aged, like a sweet poem left too long in the sun with pages turned brittle. The second was loud and hard, a sinking thing, just barely kept above a sea of contempt. Neither were particularly pleasant.

“Yes, of course,” came the answer. Crawly perked up, and inched along the ground, careful but eager. That was Azariah, though he sounded quite unlike himself, if Crawly was any judge. Flat. Unconcerned. Almost bored.

Crawly found his way to the orchard, just as fruitful and fragrant as before. Keeping low, he couldn’t quite see the way ahead, but scented and listened until he could determine where the three stood. He slithered slowly and carefully up the trunk of a nearby tree, coiling against soft bark and settling in the branches until he was hidden by a green canopy. Then he discreetly peered from among the leaves.

There was Azariah. He was dressed once again in a blindingly white tunic, but today wore a distinctly untidy crown of violet and primrose. Crawly was reminded of the hasty braids of weeds in his own hair. The thought raised a strange fondness beneath his scales, perhaps where the fire had been. Azariah was stiffly dipped into what was almost a bow before the two figures that faced him.

 One was a woman. Her gown fell about her in cascades of silver cream. There was a watery shimmer that clung to her skin and hair, sparkling when she moved. She wore a bristling crown of ripe blackberries, much neater and more sculpted than Azariah’s.

The man beside her was… rectangular, Crawly decided. Chiseled as though from marble, similarly pale, with straight-cut robes and short-cropped hair. He wore no crown, but carried a bundle of exquisite lilies, too perfect to be real, with both hands. Had those flowers been any ordinary lilies, he no doubt would have crushed them.

They stood beneath a tree, which unlike any other in the orchard, bore no fruit. Instead, it was rosy with pink blossoms and quivered in the breeze, dropping a slow rain of petals. It was the only one that Crawly could see that was not fully ripe with fruit. 

“Until we have this thief, Aziraphale, you will stand guard here and watch,” the woman said gravely, “If you should spy any mortal, Aziraphale, any stranger who seeks the apples here, you will stop him. If he should elude you, Aziraphale, you will not give chase, but come to us with your news.”

“Yes, Michael.”

“Aziraphale,” the man intoned, “You will not leave this orchard, not by earth nor air, until we have discharged you. Aziraphale, you will take this sword,” he produced from among the lilies the same pale scabbard Azariah had wielded that very first night, “And with it, render your purpose. Aziraphale,” the man grinned dazzlingly, “Just to be perfectly clear, when you find the thief, you will kill him.”

“Yes, Gabriel.”

Azariah took the sword stonily and said nothing more as Gabriel turned to Michael, clapping his hands, “Well! That should about do it, don’t you think?”

Michael nodded mildly, but added as an afterthought, “Oh, and Aziraphale? Should you fail, have no fear. We shall be most understanding.”

Gabriel gave a hearty chortle and said, “He won’t fail,” with a certainty that was most assuredly a threat.

Snakes do not blink, but Crawly had to wonder if he had somehow managed it, because between one breath and the next, the two were gone.

Azariah let out a long, shaking breath, and slumped against the flowering tree, holding the silver blade in a loose grasp, as though he would like nothing better than to drop it. Crawly waited a moment more to be sure that Michael and Gabriel were gone, before leaping from his hiding spot. Azariah jumped and whirled, sword high, at the shuddering thump of Crawly’s feet hitting the ground.

“Oh!” he exclaimed at the sight of Crawly brushing twigs from his clothes, “It’s you! I didn’t think you’d know to find me here.”

“You’re not giving me the slip, if that’s what has you worried,” Crawly said airily.

Azariah gave a thin smile and said, “And I’m grateful for that. It seems that I won’t be visiting the old shrine for a while yet. I worried that you would be waiting for me all day. If, of course, you didn’t just leave right off.”

“You had me worried,” Crawly said, then backpedaled, “Well. Concerned. Well, actually, more like curious. I was curious after yesterday and all. Wanted to make sure you were. All right.”

“Perfectly fine,” Azariah said, still leaning wearily against the tree trunk.

Crawly chose not to argue. Instead, he flopped to the ground, leaning casually against the tree, and asked, “What was all that about, anyway? They’ve got you guarding this place every day now?”

He wanted to ask about the strange name those two had called Azariah, but he felt that he already knew. There were certain sigils he could think of, names he would never dare write, and to ask about “Aziraphale,” felt wrong somehow. Not yet, he decided.

“Oh, erm.” Azariah hemmed, lightly balancing on a tree root so that he was not quite sitting, but neither standing, “Yes. Day and night. It’s all so very strange. You see, the mortal thief came again last night. Stole an apple right out of that tree,” he pointed to a slim shape towards the edge of the orchard, “And it’s becoming rather serious because that tree was. Well. It was the same sort I gave to you, if you recall. And while the loss of one of _those_ apples is hardly catastrophic, now the thief may come and go as they please, full moon or no. But the real worry,” he raised his hands to indicate the blossoms above him, “is if a mortal man were to take one of _these_ apples. That would be quite a problem.”

“But this tree doesn’t even have any fruit,” Crawly pointed out, “What, are the flowers dangerous, too?”

“They are,” Azariah said, “But the apples even more so. It will ripen in time and we must have caught the thief by then.”

“What happens if we don’t? If a mortal should eat of this tree?”

“I really shouldn’t say.”

“Alright,” Crawly said, _I’ll figure it out before then, anyway_ , “But whoever this is, they must be very keen on something if they were willing to travel on the night of May Eve. And, who knows? Perhaps my- that is, perhaps a Hound or something ate them on their way out, and it’s a moot point.”

“If that is the case,” Azariah said glumly, “I shall be here for a very long while.”

 “I’ll keep you company,” Crawly promised, “When I can.”

Azariah smiled warmly, before something else caught his attention and he asked, “What _is_ that in your hair?”

“Oh, this?” Crawly flicked his braid, which by now was more of a fraying rope, over his shoulder to examine it, “Bindweed. And some,” he snatched stinging fingers away from the tangle, “Thistle. I’m not certain that I was the one who put _that_ there.”

“Oh, dear,” Azariah said, “Do you need any help with that?”

“If you don’t mind,” Crawly said, turning to give Azariah better access, “Careful with the thorns.”

Azariah hummed, set aside the sword, and deftly began unwinding each tangle and knot with gentle fingers. “So, who would put all this thistle in here if not you?” he asked.

Crawly shrugged, “Oh, hard to say. Could have been anyone, really. Someone’s idea of a joke. I probably would have thought of it myself only,” he coughed and finished lamely, “I didn’t.”

Azariah gave a light laugh, and Crawly could not help but join. It was nice having someone’s hands in his hair. Someone who wasn’t pulling it, anyway.

Azariah gave a contented sigh and paused in his work to note, “You smell like smoke.”

“Wild night,” Crawly shrugged. He wrestled briefly with an upwelling of fear and uncertainty, crushed all thought of the Baelfire and Beelzebub’s strange proclamation. In half a second his mind was successfully subdued, and he could reach back to prod playfully at Azariah and say, “You smell like flowers.”

“I would think so,” Azariah answered, “I had to gather nearly all of them.”

“Gather flowers? What for? And where,” Crawly wondered, thinking of the vast expanse of scrubby moor that surrounded them, “Would you even find flowers around here?”

Azariah slipped a particularly thorny strand from the rest and hummed, “There’s a sort of ceremony at the Areopagus. The great statue of the Veiled Mother is crowned with roses, the most perfect roses from the gardens. There is a procession as well, and we each lay flowers at her feet.”

“And wear crowns of your own?”

“Yes,” Azariah absently tapped his own wreath, “We each make our own. Of course, what with gathering the offerings and bringing everything to everyone else, I didn’t have much material left for mine. Or much time, for that matter. But it’s alright. Such a silly thing to even think of.”

“Well,” Crawly said, craning to look at Azariah upside-down, “I like yours better than theirs, anyway.”

Azariah smiled. The morning light had gained strength, seeping through the fog to light a halo in his hair and glint in the sea of his eyes as he said, “Aren’t you dear.”

Crawly snapped forward, feeling bizarrely pink, and coughed.

“That should do it,” Azariah decided, teasing a final thorned leaf from the mass, “There’s still quite a bit of bindweed left, but the thistle is completely gone.”

Crawly tossed his hair and ran his fingers through it, grinning.

“Very nice,” he said as he stood, “I suppose I’d better find some way to get whoever back.”

“You don’t even know who it was that did it in the first place.”

Crawly shrugged, “Oh, it hardly matters. No one ever knows who really did what.”

“Before you go,” Azariah said, suddenly shy, “Could you please do something for me?”

“Sure,” Crawly agreed easily, “What is it?”

Azariah cupped his hands, as though cradling a mouse, and opened them. Within the nest of his fingers sat a bundle of delicate hellebore, in such dark purples that they were almost black.

“Would you take these to the old shrine,” he asked, “And give them to the statue of the Veiled Mother? Of course, the grand likeness at the Areopagus got a lovely wreath of roses, but the old shrine was left rather forgotten. I was going to do it myself, but. Well, you know. I would hate for her to be left out.”

Crawly accepted the flowers with a gentle hand, “Of course,” he said, “No problem.”

Azariah’s answering smile was too bright, too warm, and Crawly could only flee from it.

Once more he dove into the grass and only once the orchard had completely vanished behind him did he begin to wonder just how he was supposed to find the shrine in the ever shifting landscape.

He soon found that he needn’t have worried. The stones rose before him, almost too quickly, as though _they_ had come to find _him_. As though this Veiled Mother were eager for her gifts.

He shuffled into the circle, clutching the hellebore close, and stood before the statue.

“Erm,” he said, not quite able to look directly at where her face would be, “I brought these?”

He held out the flowers. The statue, naturally, said nothing.

“I don’t really know if there’s a way I’m supposed to be doing this, but Azariah made these for you. And it’s got to be better than nothing, eh?”

He hastily set them on the plinth and backed away. Then crept forward to adjust them. Then leapt away again.

Still, the statue seemed to watch him expectantly and Crawly was beginning to feel very wrong-footed indeed. Finally, an idea came to him.

“Oh! How about,” he reached up into his hair and extracted a curling vine dotted with white cup-like blooms, “some of this, as well? It’s not very fancy, and bindweed’s fairly common. But it’s something, right?”

He wound the vine into a little circlet and, though he had to stretch quite a bit to reach, managed to set it crookedly on the Veiled Mother’s head.

“There you are!” he said, feeling much surer, “That’s much better. Don’t you look grand?”

And, strangely, she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of May is time for the May Procession, and when I was a wee thing at Catholic school, we would all steal flowers from our mothers' gardens to present to the statue of Mary at the playground. They'd line us up outside and one of the sisters would crown the statue with carnations while a priest gave a sermon or something. It was so boring, I can't even begin to tell you.
> 
> The flowers I describe here have their own fun little histories. Michael wears blackberry because according to legend, when they cast Satan out of Heaven, he landed in a blackberry bush. Gabriel carried lilies, because the Biblical Gabriel gave lilies to Mary during the Annunciation. Violet and primrose are flowers representing modesty and humility, and black hellebore is also called Christmas Rose, even though it isn't actually a rose and is in fact very poisonous.  
> Bindweed or wild morning glory, as irritating as it can be, is considered sacred to The Virgin Mary. Doesn't stop me from raining death upon it when it creeps into my yard. 
> 
> This chapter's title comes from "In Early May," by Bliss Carman. It's a wonderful poem about Springtime that really captures the magic of the season. I picked that line because things are pretty chill in this chapter, got some sweet moments and a bit of a breath before the plunge. This is becoming a much slower burn than I originally planned, but romance has never been my forte. 
> 
> I'm going to be making some major revisions to On the Finding of Witches. I've decided to scrap most of the plot I'd had outlined for it and just make it more of a slice of life kind of thing. These poor boys will suffer enough in this story, they don't need more in the next.
> 
> Please let me know what you think!


	6. Sweet Empty Sky of June

The days and nights passed in a summery haze. Crawly went where he was bid, gathered and delivered as he was commanded, and never once did Beelzebub call for him or even mention the Baelfire. Dagon, too, seemed to have forgotten the matter entirely, still kicking at him as he slithered past and laughing at his jokes. Hastur, on the other hand, began to watch with a strange wariness, and whatever Hastur did, Ligur mirrored. Neither sent the serpent on any errand, instead choosing to torment whichever of the Legion was at hand. Not that Crawly was complaining, exactly. Hastur and Ligur’s “chores” ran on the side of absurdly gruesome, as opposed to the others’ only reasonably horrifying demands.

Even better, the decrease in assignments gave Crawly more time and freedom to visit Azariah.

The young sorcerer was always in the orchard anymore, standing statue-still beneath the trees until Crawly arrived to wake him to life. Then he would smile, and they would talk, and Crawly would feel warmer than the gentle summer sun could quite account for.

Azariah had developed the habit of twisting little braids into Crawly’s hair while they spoke, and Crawly would feel pleasantly tingly for hours afterwards, even after leaving the moor.

Sometimes Crawly would stay for the night, especially during the full moon, although he knew the thief could find the place at any time.

On these nights he would curl in the boughs of The Tree, the big one, the important one. There was something about being a snake (which had never bothered him before) that he didn’t like Azariah to see. Of course, the man had always known that Crawly was no mere human, but to slither at his feet, to speak to him around knitting-needle fangs, to stare unblinking into his shining face…. Crawly didn’t like it, and much preferred to stand. Yet he could better discern the scent of step of any approaching strangers in his first shape, and he was eager to catch the mysterious culprit so that Azariah could finally leave the garden. And so he remained, as he guarded, wrapped in the apple tree’s branches while Azariah stalked the perimeter of the orchard, sword aloft.  

It only occurred to him during the third night that Azariah must have trusted him a great deal to let him crawl around up there.

 

Sometimes, even without Azariah asking, Crawly would visit the old shrine. He had quite gotten over his initial hesitance and had even taken to leaving her flowers just because. He would chatter away to her as he did. Things like, “Lucky, isn’t it, that all this hellebore is growing here now, who would’ve thought these things would spread so well, Beelzebub wants them for some kind of project she’s working on, and that’s fine as long as the project isn’t me. I wonder what else Azariah can make?”

Or, “I think I know Azariah’s true name, his _true name_ , and I know what the others, my coven I mean, would say about it, but I feel guilty? I know this about him and he doesn’t know much about me, not really, but he should, shouldn’t he?”

Or, “With all that bindweed growing all over you, you look as though you’re wearing a proper veil now. Not that the ivy _wasn’t_ a proper veil! I’m just saying that the flowers look nice.

And sometimes he was tempted, very tempted, to pull aside the veil and see what face her sculptor had decided to give her. Curious he may be, but stupid he generally wasn’t, so the covering remained undisturbed. And yet.

 

Crawly was with Azariah, head pillowed in his lap, talking animatedly about the cultivation of henbane, when again a morning-gilt caught in Azariah’s hair, and he blurted, mid-sentence, “You’re like an angel.”

Azariah, who had been listening raptly to a list of hallucinations Crawly had himself experienced while experimenting, looked bemused.

“What?” he asked.

Crawly felt himself light up scarlet and sat so he could turn away.

“Oh. You know. Your hair just kind of looks like a halo or something. It’s nothing. Just a thought.”

“Thank you?” Azariah said, “Only, I don’t know what an angel is.”

Crawly had forgotten, he supposed, that Azariah had never left the Areopagus and had probably never even met a mortal. “It’s a,” he began, and had to pause to think. He had spent more time wandering the wilds than creeping outside churches and had to marshal his recollections, “Well, it’s a kind of spirit, I suppose,” he decided. “It looks like a human, but it has wings, and light shines from its face. That’s the halo. They fly about running errands and things.”

“What sorts of errands?” Azariah asked, settling easily into the new topic.

“Dunno,” Crawly shrugged, “There was something about sending a flood? And killing a bunch of kids in Egypt? Oh, there was one about an angel lying to a king so that he’d start an impossible war and get killed.”

Aghast, Azariah said, “They sound perfectly horrid.”

“That’s not all!” Crawly hastened to defend his comparison, “They heal _some_ people, and fight evil spirits, and sing very lovely songs, and,” he wracked his brains, “Give people babies?”

 Azariah pondered this and asked, “Why would they do that? Such evil, horrible things, as well as such good and kind ones? What do they want?”

“I don’t think they want anything,” Crawly said, “They just do what they’re told.”

“Ah,” Azariah said flatly, “Then I suppose I am, at that.”

Crawly fidgeted uncomfortably and mumbled, “I only meant that your hair was like a halo.”

 

When summer was well under way, a night came that Crawly was wound round the branches of The Tree and Azariah was far on the other side of the orchard, quite gone from sight. As he was keeping his vigil, an unfamiliar sent caught at his tongue. Sweet as water, clear as rain. He had never encountered the like.

He shifted restlessly as something drew closer, something that burned bright and hot against his senses, with steady drumming steps. Finally, it slipped into view, and trotted toward him.

Crawly stared in open-mouthed wonder at the pale thing that approached. It was, in a very superficial sense, like a horse. But it was far too big, towering nearly to the height of the surrounding trees, thickly muscled, and blazing white. Sprouting from its forehead was a single spiraling horn, lethally sharp.

It reached Crawly’s perch and turned dark eyes upwards to regard the now quivering snake.

“Hello,” Crawly said his serpent’s whisper-voice.

The horse-thing said nothing, but tapped lazily at the tree’s roots with a shining hoof.

“You’re not the apple thief, are you?” Crawly wondered aloud, slowly unwinding from his branch and peering closer. The creature seemed peaceful enough; it regarded Crawly with a sweet, equine mildness that no horse had ever harbored for a snake.

“My, but you’re lovely,” Crawly mused, swaying even closer, until they were nearly nose to nose, “I hope Azariah’s nearby. I think he would like you.”

There was a brief blur of motion, a sharp shriek from the horse, and Azariah was there. To Crawly’s stunned dismay, Azariah lunged, swinging his blade in a vicious arc at the animal’s neck. It sprang away, bellowing, and thundered into the night. Fast as thought, Azariah gave chase.

On instinct, Crawly leapt from the tree and ran after, slipping through shadow and shade, blurring the shape of his form in ways he’d never dared before to reach the white figures ahead. He flew between tree trunks, leaving trails of darkness as he went, crossing nearly the entire breadth of the orchard.

He caught up just as the animal turned to thrust its horn at Azariah, who stepped aside, light as air, and once again brought down his weapon. Crawly knew he must have looked a fright, a smoky black thing with glimmering gold eyes as he threw (A hand? A tail?) around Azariah’s arm, shouting, “ _What are you doing?”_

Azariah gave no answer, but shoved him away with an alien strength and made to follow the retreating creature. Crawly had no idea what that animal was, but a bone-deep knowing compelled him to reach again in shapeless coils, wrapping about Azariah’s body, tight as a vice.

Mercifully, Azariah dropped the sword, but grabbed at Crawly’s scales, tugging and squeezing with surprising force. Crawly knew he wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer, and the horse was _still there._ It fretted and kicked, but would not run like any sane, reasonable beast.

 _“Aziraphale!”_ Crawly cried as his hold began to loosen, _“Stop!”_

Beneath his scales, Azariah was as stone. Every movement ceased. Crawly wasn’t even sure if he was still breathing. He maintained a firm grip, though he was almost certain Azariah would not move again.

“What in the nine hells are you waiting for?” he shouted at the animal, “Run!”

It gave an aggrieved warble, but obeyed. Crawly didn’t dare let go until the animal was safely away, vanished beyond his perception.

Finally, he uncoiled and stood, feeling wretched and furious all at once.

“What was _that_?”

Azariah offered no explanation. He remained unmoving, standing as though still bound in Crawly’s grasp, expression frozen between cold determination and betrayed horror.

Crawly reached out, drew back, and said uncertainly, “Azariah?”

Again, only silence.

“Um. Aziraphale. You can move and speak and everything now.”

Azariah straightened, refusing to look at Crawly. He retrieved his sword in icy silence and made to retreat deeper into the orchard without once acknowledging him.

“Wait!” Crawly yelped. He cut off Azariah’s path and stood resolutely in the way, “That wasn’t. I didn’t mean for,” this apology was getting nowhere, “You don’t get to just walk away after something like _that_.”

“Feel free to leave at any time,” Azariah said, still not looking at him, “This really doesn’t concern you. Or, even better, why don’t you _order_ me to tell you all about it?”

Crawly spluttered, and Azariah took the opportunity to brush past him.

“Fine!” Crawly shouted at his back, “It doesn’t concern me. So, I’ll just go!”

Azariah did not turn and beg him to stay. Nor did he provide a perfectly understandable and rational reason for his actions. He just kept walking. Stung, guilty, and still angry, Crawly fled to the moor. The forest appeared almost immediately to usher him away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did Aziraphale attack the unicorn? What will become of them now that Crawly has overstepped a boundary? When will Beelzebub summon Crawly? Will we ever see Ashtoreth again? All these questions and more will be answered and some point eventually maybe!  
> I imagine that unicorns would be very fond of Crawly. He's done some nasty things, but there's a kind of innocence to him, an innate compassion that he just can't shake. I'm also quite taken with the image of a sneering, snake-eyed demon astride a unicorn; the most unlikely knight in a faerie tale. 
> 
> This chapter's title comes from "Youth," by Emma Lazarus, mostly because this chapter takes place in June :P  
> There's going to be some more time skips coming up. I'm planning for this story to take place in the span of a year, but we'll see.  
> I'm beginning to realize that when it comes to the whole "romance" angle, I am severely out of my depth. Please let me know how it's coming along!


	7. Between the Night and Morrow

It had been some days since the argument in the orchard, not that Crawly would have been able to properly quantify them, having decided that the best course of action would be to not think about it. At all. Not the orchard, that Areopagus, the horned creature, and not Azariah. This, he was aware, was rather unlike him. He was the sort to stew, to brood on his troubles. To worry. But this time, perhaps because of the whole business being entirely new and unaccustomed, Crawly simply put it from his mind. Pretty much. For the most part.

Truth be told (and he was trying to kick _that_ particular habit) he was still angry. If Azariah had bothered explaining anything, there wouldn’t have been any problem. Why attack the horse-beast? What was so special about that apple tree? Just what the _Hell_ was going on in that blasted castle?

He knew that at some point he would go back to apologize and weasel out some answers, but he wasn’t inclined to try just yet. He didn’t know exactly what he was waiting for, but whenever he turned his path towards the moor, he’d find himself flinching away, never quite able to follow through. He’d get to it. Eventually.

A rabbit scrabbled against a moss-covered stone. It felt the snake nearby, but couldn’t see to discern his shape in the shivering dark. Its little heart stuttered with a fear that Crawly could taste from his perch. He considered letting it run off. He wasn’t hungry. He had no use for any rabbit-y components, nor did any of his covenmates. And yet his jaw twitched. He wanted, in the idle way one might want to tear up a leaf they’d found on the ground, to sink his teeth its hind leg and feel his venom melt and boil the animal’s flesh. Smell its peculiar smoke and taste its particular blood.

This, too, was unlike him.

He was saved from his considering, which was beginning to wear on his frayed mind, by a crawling sensation beneath his scales. A twitchy, clutching feeling that hummed in his clicking bones. His name had been written, scrawled into the world. And he must find it. Beelzebub’s call, it seemed, had come.

Beneath the gloom, Crawly slithered.

He followed the spirit-rope that bound him like a magnet to the rune of his being. Between gurgling cauldrons, over sucking clumps of moss and muck, he made his way to the swaying shape of Beelzebub as she bent over her brew.

At his arrival, she raised the scrap of hide on which she had scrawled his twisting Sigil. With a graceless flick, she tossed it beneath the cauldron and into the fire, allowing Crawly’s name and tether to be seared away. Without a word, she reached down and allowed him to coil loosely about her shoulders like a shawl. She lifted a stained hand to show him a bleeding clump of liver, and he obligingly gave it a yawning bite. The red flesh was already curdling to black when it was tossed into the cauldron. Slick shapes spun in the viscous mass, rocked by thick bubbles.

Crawly did not allow himself to shudder at the taste of it, at the feeling of blood dribbling from his mouth.

Beelzebub dipped a flask into the cauldron, unflinching when her bare skin touched the boiling mass, and capped it with a practiced flick.

Crawly slid to his feet so he could accept it and gave her a quizzical look.

Speaking at last, she said, “It was a healer’s fire you brought here May Eve, and no ordinary healer, either. After much deliberation, I’ve prepared a little test for your hostess. Return to the village, give this to anyone, so long as _she_ is the one to treat him. We’ll see what she makes of it.”  

Not daring to reply, Crawly nodded and set off, winding into the woods and away.

 

He wound up dawdling for three days. He spent the time slinking among the houses, learning his way around the village, and eavesdropping where he could. He learned that Old Maudie’s granddaughter was to be married (“About time!”) and that the carter’s dog had dug up his neighbor’s turnips (“Leave off, I said I’d pay for it, didn’t I?”) and that the cattle were sickening (“Must be something in the feed, they’ll be fine in a bit,”) and that Miss Eve’s husband was ill (“The poor thing, so young!”)

The trick was deciding who got the poison. Children were out, definitely. Still, it couldn’t be some elder that sickened and died. It would have to be someone young and healthy. Someone the whole village would talk about. Someone the target of Beelzebub’s interest would notice.

Crawly was perched on the roof the Devices’ cottage, basking in the rising sun and tuning out the muffled voices from within. It served the double purpose of being the home of his subject, and a fair distance from the main village without being so far that Crawly couldn’t see it from among the thatch.

Perhaps the miller? He was young enough. Strong. Everyone knew him, depended on him, even. It would quite the story if he grew ill and died. And die he certainly would.

The man had a brother who could manage things once he was gone, so the village would not be without a miller for any space of time. Noticeable, but not too tremendous a loss. Bad luck for the miller, Crawly tried to tell himself airily, but these things happen.  

An old woman stepped out of the house, still talking to someone inside, “And you’re sure, then? It’ll take three days?”

“I could give you something faster,” answered Agnes’s voice, “But it would make your granddaughter ill. With this, there will be no discomfort, nothing to mark it. No one will ever know she might have been with child.”

The old woman gave a harsh _“shush!”_ and stared angrily about, as though searching for eavesdroppers in the nearby hawthorn. She found no spies, but her eyes did alight on something overhead. She shrieked.

Crawly flinched back, but before he could think to move away, the crone had pitched a rock at him. Stunned by the woman’s audacity, Crawly failed to maneuver out of the projectile’s path, and only stared blankly at its approach before being knocked soundly from the roof. He landed in a graceless heap between the two women like a tangled length of rope.

“Thank you, Maudie,” Agnes said mildly as she poked at Crawly with a broom, “I’ve never seen one so big.”

He’d been seen. _He’d been seen_. Beelzebub was going to _kill_ him.

Dazed and afraid, Crawly gave an explosive hiss and tried to snap at her, but missed and realized he was seeing double. He lunged again, but lost the momentum and sagged into the dirt, miserable and humiliated. It seemed that retreat was his best option, but he couldn’t sort himself out. Was he upside down?

“I’ll take care of the rest,” Agnes was saying mildly, “Put the poor thing out of its misery.”

She most certainly would _not_. Crawly reared once more, mouth gaping, fangs bared, and struck. Without a word, or even a change of expression, Agnes brought the broom down hard and Crawly was slammed into the doorpost.

He lay on the ground, staring, and tried to remember which end was his tail.

“Be sure you burn that thing,” the crone advised, “It’s certainly evil.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Agnes repeated, “Thank you again. I’ll see you Sunday, shall I? Yes. Have a lovely evening.”

With her guest gone, Agnes regarded the snake with her hands on her hips. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ve already died,” she said.

Crawly twitched defiantly and hissed again.

“Well, now, young Mistress Ashtoreth, it _is_ you. It hasn’t been so very long, has it, that you have forgotten your manners?” She _tsked_ softly and began gathering him up, “I won’t be getting anything out of you like this,” she said. Once she had managed to hoist most of his bulk into her arms, she carried him into the cottage and kicked the door shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand we're back! I know I kind of have this thing where I don't update for ages and ages, but that felt like a WHILE. Rest assured, I have no plans to abandon this or the sequel. School's been a real bitch, and that good old seasonal depression had me down, but Spring is on the way and I'll likely pick right back up come Summer.   
> Agnes is back! We'll be seeing a lot more of her, don't you worry.   
> This chapter's title is a line from William Allingham's "The Fairies." You'll probably recognize the first lines: "Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting for fear of little men."  
> Please let me know how things are coming along! I'm not sure how well things are being explained or expressed, so if you have any questions or there's anything you'd like to be cleared up or addressed, don't hesitate to ask!


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